Convert A String To A Date Value In MySQL

21st April 2009 - 5 minutes read time

There are numerous ways to print out dates and times, and many hours of programming are spent in converting dates from one format to another.

To do this in MySQL you use the STR_TO_DATE() function, which has two parameters. The first parameter is the time to be parsed and the second is the format of that time. Here is a simple example that converts one date format to a MySQL formatted date string.

SELECT STR_TO_DATE('[ 21/Apr/2009:07:14:50 +0100]', '[ %d/%b/%Y:%H:%i:%S +0100]');

This outputs 2009-04-21 07:14:50.

Using this function is quite intuitive and means that you can convert between time formats very easily. Here are a few more examples of this function.

SELECT STR_TO_DATE('21/04/2009', '%d/%m/%Y'); // 2009-04-21
SELECT STR_TO_DATE('04/21/2009', '%m/%d/%Y'); // 2009-04-21
SELECT STR_TO_DATE('2009-04-21 14', '%Y-%m-%d %H'); // 2009-04-21 14:00:00

If you enter a date that can't be translated then you will get an error, take the following code that tries to convert a minute value of 87.

SELECT STR_TO_DATE('2009-04-21 14:87', '%Y-%m-%d %H:%i');

The following error message is returned.

Incorrect datetime value: '2009-04-21 14:87' for function str_to_date

This error can be quite easy to reproduce. For example, if you wanted to parse a time that was in 24 format, you would use the %H for hours. Using the %h value for hours will produce exactly this error.

The following table lists all of the different parameters that are involved in the date formatting features within MySQL. Use this to parse your own dates.

SpecifierDescription
%aAbbreviated weekday name (Sun..Sat)
%bAbbreviated month name (Jan..Dec)
%cMonth, numeric (0..12)
%DDay of the month with English suffix (0th, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, ...)
%dDay of the month, numeric (00..31)
%eDay of the month, numeric (0..31)
%fMicroseconds (000000..999999)
%HHour (00..23)
%hHour (01..12)
%IHour (01..12)
%iMinutes, numeric (00..59)
%jDay of year (001..366)
%kHour (0..23)
%lHour (1..12)
%MMonth name (January..December)
%mMonth, numeric (00..12)
%pAM or PM
%rTime, 12-hour (hh:mm:ss followed by AM or PM)
%SSeconds (00..59)
%sSeconds (00..59)
%TTime, 24-hour (hh:mm:ss)
%UWeek (00..53), where Sunday is the first day of the week
%uWeek (00..53), where Monday is the first day of the week
%VWeek (01..53), where Sunday is the first day of the week; used with %X
%vWeek (01..53), where Monday is the first day of the week; used with %x
%WWeekday name (Sunday..Saturday)
%wDay of the week (0=Sunday..6=Saturday)
%XYear for the week where Sunday is the first day of the week, numeric, four digits; used with %V
%xYear for the week, where Monday is the first day of the week, numeric, four digits; used with %v
%YYear, numeric, four digits
%yYear, numeric (two digits)
%%A literal % character
%xx, for any x not listed above
STR_TO_DATE

Comments

This function is really helpful for me. I've been searching for this and I'm very lucky to find this post. Thank you for sharing.

Submitted by Chris on Fri, 04/08/2011 - 10:31

Permalink
Solution: The solution of below Error is.. The following error message is returned. Incorrect datetime value: '2009-04-21 14:87' for function str_to_date; you just add this line of code before insert command Query. The time also insert into table .SET @@SESSION.sql_mode='NO_ZERO_DATE,NO_ZERO_IN_DATE';insert into test ('1','Sajjad',STR_TO_DATE('2009-04-21 14:87', '%Y-%m-%d %H:%i'))

Submitted by sajjad ahmed on Thu, 11/13/2014 - 13:16

Permalink

Add new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
CAPTCHA
3 + 0 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

Related Content

Solving Query Performance Problems With The MySQL Slow Query Log

21st January 2024

MySQL's slow query log is a key component in your MySQL administration setup. Whilst normal logging can help you in terms of tracking down issues with your database system, the slow query log can help you track down issues in your database setup before they become problematic.

Read more

Case Insensitive Like Searches In MySQL

2nd July 2011

I needed to create a query that did a case insensitive search using the LIKE command in MySQL and I quickly realised that in order to do this I would need to alter both the parameter and the table data to be the same case. This can be done by using the MySQL UPPER() command on the table data and the strtoupper() PHP function on the input data.

Read more

Connecting To A Non Standard MySQL Socket In PHP

11th February 2011

Connecting to a MySQL database in PHP is usually not a difficult thing to do, in fact it is one of the first things that many tutorials will go though. However, there are certain curcumstances that require more information than the standard host, password and username details.

Read more

Count Number Of Characters In A String With MySQL

30th September 2010

Today I needed to grab some data from a table where there was more than one occurrence of a string within another string. Basically, I needed to find all URL's from a table that were more than 3 levels deep (i.e. with 3 slashes), but realised there wasn't a function to do this in MySQL.

Read more

MySQL Order Table By Character Length

24th September 2009

As part of debugging a bit of code I needed to know the longest possible field lengths that a record contains. You might need to know this if you are performing a database migration. The following query returns a field, along with the length of the string, and orders the results by the number of characters in that string.

Read more

Starting And Stopping MySQL Using Windows .bat Files

13th May 2009

I use my PC for a lot of different things, and I don't necessarily need to have MySQL server running all the time, especially when I want to play a game. So I wondered if there was a simple way in which I could start and stop the server using a simple .bat file.

Read more